Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the delay in updating the diary, we’ve both been very busy since the jump, and probably spending too much time dreaming about free-falling!

As you know, we did the jump on 4th June. Following the huge disappointment of the cancellation a fortnight previously, I was delighted to wake up to a fine day, with the promise of good weather all day.

The drive to Cirencester was lovely (apart from a short roadworks related delay around Cardiff). Travelling through Wales (on the M4 admittedly, but the landscape is still beautiful) and then through the beautiful villages of Wiltshire and the Cotswolds is a very pleasant way to pass a couple of hours, particularly if you’re also very excited about your destination, and what you’re going to do there!

As we got closer to the airfield we bagan to see parachutes coming in to land, some tandem… I think it was at this point that the huge grin in the photos started to appear, I am pretty sure I went to sleep that night still wearing that grin!

Once Kylie and I were both at the airfield we checked ourselves in…. and waited…

It was much more fun waiting this time, because we were standing in the sun, totally sure we were going to get to jump, waiting to be called to get our jumpsuits and harneses put on, and then having loads of photos taken, it was almost like being famous! We had to wear the most uncomfortable goggles for the jump, and we had to pose wearing them for ages, they were horrible!! Dad got a really good photo of us in them though!

We got called to go at about 2 o’clock, we got taken to a van that drove us to the plane. Paul my instructor went through everything I needed to know again, then we got in the plane. The flight up was mad, because I knew what I was going to do at the end of the ascent! The ascent seemed to take ages, and got much higher than I expected – at one point I thought ‘ooh, that’s high’, then Paul showed me his altometer, and we were only half way up!

When we got to 12,000 feet the plane door was opened, and Kylie was being shuffled to the door by Al, her instructor. I watched in amazement as she disappeared from the plane, then I was being shuffled to the front! When your legs are dangling over nothing at 12,000 feet, you certainly see things differently!

The next few seconds are indescribable, even to myself, it was like total sensory overload; in the first few seconds we were travelling at 180 mph, then slowed down 120 mph – that’s not a natural speed for humans to travel at, but it’s very exciting!

I know I wasn’t supposed to look down during the freefall, but how could you NOT look?? You get to see the land like you never saw it before, it was amazing!

I had lots of fun when the parachute was opened, and I was given control of the chute for a while, enough to be able to spin around, that was a brilliant feeling!

Kylie might still not be able to stand on a chair for any length of time, and I still probably will still get nervous when I take Liam to old castles, but we are both desperate to be able to do more parachute jumps! We are now thinking about doing a static line jump (where we have to make the decision to leave the plane ourselves – a very different experience I’m sure) and also both want to do the Accelerated FreeFalling course to become qualified parachutists. That’s a bit expensive, and would require some careful saving, so we’ll have to see how that goes.

Thanks to all who have sponsored Kylie and myself, at the time of writing this diary I have almost £700 in my ‘parachute jump’ savings account, which doesn’t include the cost of the jump and a £120 donation to Cancer Bacup that have already been paid. This means that so far I have already collected over £1000, and Kylie has raised about the same I believe. I still have some pledged sponsorship to collect, so will be able to update you on the grand total in a couple of weeks.

Love to all

Esther
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